


Tattoos for Two

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Dépaysement [1]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Caravan Traders, Gen, Longing, M/M, Marriage, Megaton, Missing a Lover, Practical Marriage Practices, Tattoos, Vault 101, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay enjoys talking to the traders when they happen to be in Megaton at the same time, even when the conversation strikes a little close to home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tattoos for Two

The Brass Lantern wasn’t the best place to hang out and socialize, especially after hours. People usually went to spend money in Moriarty’s Saloon, but that wasn’t the sort of place Jay liked to spend his time. It wasn’t just that it was a bar and brothel; the way Moriarty treated Gob and Nova crawled all over him, and Moriarty just found it funny.

He’d advised Tom and Mary to avoid the place whenever they could, and to never borrow money from the man, but he did appear to be the richest person in town. If they were going to stay, it was basically inevitable that they would run into him eventually. Megaton wasn’t the largest town in the world.

But Jay would be beholden to no man, not even an old friend of his father’s.  _ Especially _ an old friend of his father’s. 

So the Brass Lantern got all his patronage, and what Jenny Stahl did with his caps, Jay didn’t actually know or care. She usually cut him a deal on his food and drink anyway.

And what was more, the Brass Lantern was right at the entrance, which meant all the caravans that came in came to the Brass Lantern. Jay traveled, usually with his sister, and sometimes they did travel with caravans. But for the most part, he liked it most because they would come over and talk to him.

They asked questions, of course. Usually they were little things. About his jacket and his hair. Shock-red wasn’t unnatural, but it was pretty rare. The Tunnel Snakes  _ was  _ rare and unusual. And when people looked past those, they usually caught sight of the white bleached into his collar and asked the question everybody asked when they realized it was there.

Jay was the Vault 101 Chaplain. He’d had a lot of jobs that came with that duty. Listening to people, being the counselor, wasn’t the only one. The Overseer had wanted him to report back to him who wanted to leave the Vault and if they were planning on actually trying to leave. Jay had usually tried to sooth their fears and talk them into waiting, into being patient, because he had made the mistake of reporting one person once and that.. hadn’t ended well.

But his favorite job, and the stories he usually told, were weddings.

“I married Tom and Mary,” he admitted, when a trader wanted an example. “The Holden’s. They live here in Megaton.”

“But what’s it like? Marriage in a vault?”

He shrugged. “Like marriage anywhere else, I guess. There’s the exchanging of vows, and we sign a certificate to go in the genealogy files. Then they move in together and if it all goes well, in a year or so, I would take the ticket down to records before they received their marriage tattoos. Sometimes it doesn’t take a year, of course. The Holden’s had been together since they were little things and everyone knew they were meant for each other. They shared their vows and got their tattoos a month later.”

“Tattoos?” One trader furrowed her brow. “Ya’ll don’t use rings?”

The question made him shake his head. “I’m surprised anyone does, actually. Jewelry puts new shapes on your fingers that could catch in guns or make you a larger target for raiders, right? It’s the same on the maintenance track. Wearing stuff like that can cause lost fingers. Marriage tattoos are permanent; they can’t be taken off when you’re angry at your spouse, and even if you separate, that part of your life was still a part of your life.”

“Doesn’t it hurt, to get a tattoo?”

“Living hurts. Loving hurts, too,” Jay admitted, thinking of night-time trysts and stolen kisses. “Marriage is hard, and there’s never not going to be pain and difficulty there. By sitting through a tattooing with your spouse, you’re being very literal about the  _ through pleasure and pain _ part. If you can’t stand a tattoo, you shouldn’t be married.”

Real marriages were pretty rare in Vault 101 these days. Or they had been, before the Overseer had gone crazy. But that was mostly because there were not enough people-- a population of  _ less than two hundred _ did not a stable vault make-- and sometimes Jay had found himself wandering the empty, dusty halls and rooms that had once been filled to capacity, two hundred years before. He could only try to imagine people in them, so many people the rest of the rooms branching from the chapel would require their own occupants. 

Usually it was just about the ceremony, or the certificates. But some people, like the Holden’s.. Those were real. Jay had relished giving them their tattoos.

His own skin was devoid of deliberate blemish. He wished he had been brave enough to ask Butch, but it had never felt like the right time. Now he may never know.


End file.
